It’s only natural to produce things in waves. Publishing weekly has been a wonderful experiment, but I’ll be taking a break from Substack; maybe a week, a month, or more.
Thank you for following along. A year ago I was too shy to share my writing with even my close friends, and now I have a few dozen strangers reading along. It’s a small thing, but it has given me life-changing confidence in my work – the simple fact that people who have no stake in my life find value in my musings. Thank you doesn’t quite suffice here, but it’s the best words can do.
My mind is a mess of contradictions right now, and it needs silence to piece things back together. I’ve had a few intense experiences recently, equal parts thrilling and disturbing – a shape-shifting relationship, an earth-shattering pharmaceutical experience, an impending move – all of which combine into a state of fleeting inconsequence, like riding a train through a dream.
I take this turbulence as a fact of life broadly and also particular to my temperament, which tends to move between certainty, purpose, and drive and bewilderment, openness, and silence.
These periods of chaotic nonsense deserve as much attention as the periods of serene clarity. So I’m going dark for a bit, don’t know how long. I’ll leave you with a few visual/musical pairings that speak to the joy of the unknown.
Love,
Miles
Would you stare forever at the sun
Never watch the moon rising?
Would you walk forever in the light
To never learn the secret of the quiet night?
In the deepest ocean
The bottom of the sea
Your eyes
They turn me
Black hole sun, won’t you come
And wash away the rain
Do you recall waking up on a dirty couch in the grey fog
And the grey dog barking down the street?
Columns shake your feet
Beneath your feet.
Beneath your feet.
Beneath your feet.
Root Cellar
by Theodore Roethke
Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch,
Bulbs broke out of boxes hunting for chinks in the dark,
Shoots dangled and drooped,
Lolling obscenely from mildewed crates,
Hung down long yellow evil necks, like tropical snakes.
And what a congress of stinks!—
Roots ripe as old bait,
Pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich,
Leaf-mold, manure, lime, piled against slippery planks.
Nothing would give up life:
Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath.
✤
My temperament moves the same way. I’ve never been an ONWARD IN THIS CERTAIN DIRECTION INDEFINITELY person. I burst open and sprint, I fold shut and ferment. I’m in a quiet, bewildered period now, like you.
Good on you for taking the time you need. May this be a rich period for you and I’ll be delighted to read more from you when you return.
Blessings to you on your journey! 🙏✨